The story behind my flower series….

In the spring of 2022, I really started to notice how many beautiful flower gardens there are in my neighbourhood, and apparently all over Toronto. So I made a series.

I used my iPhone 13 in portrait mode (PM) at f1.6 and edited, usually over-edited, my image selects primarily using the iPhone 13 software. I started to discover some fun glitches caused by using PM in a way it wasn’t really designed for.

If you use an iPhone, you may have noticed the message that very often pops up when using PM and tells you you’re too close to the subject – it says: “move farther away”. At the same time, the camera decides to take control and switch you back to the regular camera mode from PM, probably because the AI camera decided the user (you) clearly has no clue what they’re doing. It’ll switch back when it thinks you’re ready. But this is the worst function of this mode, especially if you’re trying to shoot things close-up.

By experimenting everyday, I eventually realized that if I was quick to get close and capture an image as fast as I could, I could get one (or a few!) shots off before it switched back to photo mode. Doing this eventually works if you have patience, and it can also pretty reliably produce some “fun” and “incorrect” images. The camera has to quickly asses the frame to determine the focal point (fp) of the image, which it will use to add the digital blur in front and behind the fp. Mistakes were made, but that kept it fun!

So, I kept shooting flowers this way, almost daily through to the fall.

I hope you enjoy this gallery!